


No More Nights Alone

by lilac-vode (MollyMerula)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555 Lives, Gen, I keep getting upset thinking about touch starved Echo so here is how I'm dealing with it, NOT CLONESHIPPING, No Romance, post-Bad Batch arc except Fives is alive because I said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22590799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyMerula/pseuds/lilac-vode
Summary: Fives keeps Echo company on his first night back from Skako Minor. Some things are different, but everything that matters is the same.
Relationships: CT-21-0408 | Echo & CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555
Comments: 20
Kudos: 166





	No More Nights Alone

“Echo.”

Somehow his brother’s whisper cuts through the haze of sleep and sedatives. Echo shifts a little, furrowing his brow. He doesn’t open his eyes. Doesn’t have to. He knows it’s Fives.

“I got up to check on you,” Fives continues from beside his bed, “and it’s a good thing I did. You sounded like you were having a bad dream. And you're shivering," he adds, shaking out a thick blanket from his own bunk and throwing it over Echo. Out of instinct he checks to make sure it's covering his brother's feet - Echo can't stand his feet sticking out. Then his fingers find cold metal, and all at once he remembers, but he pulls the blanket down anyway, after a moment of stillness. “Do you really have to sleep in here? Can’t you bunk with the rest of us like before?”

“Kix won’t let me yet. He says I have to stay hooked up to all this,” Echo says, sitting up to wave his hand at the assortment of equipment around him. “Just in case my system is shocked from when they…disconnected me back there on Skako Minor.” His voice is still a little quiet, a little hoarse from getting used to talking again.

Fives nods, moving to sit down on Echo’s bed beside him. “Better safe than sorry, I suppose. Still, I’m not going to let you spend another night alone. You’ve had far too many of those.” He reaches forward to ruffle Echo's hair, like he always does – it’s more of a head rub this time, since his brother’s hair is just starting to grow back out in a thick fuzz. Fives can’t imagine what life must have been like for Echo while he was separated from the rest of them – going from playful, jostling camaraderie every day to absolutely no physical contact at all – but he resolves to do his best to make up for it.

 _No more nights alone._ Echo takes a steadying breath, then huffs it out sharply. He hates the smell of the medbay now. The sharp tang of the disinfectant reminds him of the other place, cold and clinical, all metal and white. But then Fives drops his hand to Echo’s shoulder and pulls him into a hug, and when Echo buries his face in his brother’s shoulder and breathes in, the sharpness is replaced by a softness, familiar and warm. He hugs back, as best he can with one arm. It barely seems real, being reunited with his brothers, just like he’s been dreaming of ever since he was taken from them. But it is real. He’s sure of that.

“You should get some sleep, vod,” Fives says finally, letting go and moving to the other side of the bed. The medbay beds are narrow, but at least they’re both side sleepers. Echo lies back down, trying to get his inadequately stuffed pillow to sit just right.

“Hey, Echo,” Fives says suddenly, as he’s trying to find where the sheets end and the blankets begin. “We should have Kix re-measure you tomorrow, with the new legs and everything. You know, in case you’re finally taller than me.”

It’s so unexpected, so ridiculous, that Echo can’t help but laugh, which is exactly what Fives wanted. He’s missed that sound so much that hearing it feels like breathing in again after a long, long time. And for a while after that, they’re just cadets again, laughing together in the darkness about anything and nothing, long past the time when they’re supposed to be awake.

Echo is still laughing softly even after Fives is asleep. Then he drifts off too, and though he awakes a few times in the night, heart hammering, he is instantly soothed each time by the warm weight of his brother’s back against his own. Echo presses closer, Fives presses back. In the morning, that’s where Kix finds them, back to back, both of them sleeping soundly for the first time in so, so long.


End file.
